In the seventies my parents moved to Yousuf Baker road just a few miles away from the creek that cuts through Dubai. In the evenings, the sparseness of the landscape, allowed the wind to blow a salty-sea smell our way. Life seemed almost languid. By the nineties seedy hotels and Russian prostitutes would abound, but back then we lived in one of the two multi-storied buildings in the area, surrounded by a cluster of mosques, minarets, flat-roofed Arabic houses and tiny shops run by Iranians and Keralities. The Iranians had the bakeries and groceries, selling fresh produce that came in by dhows from Iran. The Keralites had the barber shops, the laundries and the general stores, selling 7 O’clock razor blades and Patra perfume.
Most of the Keralites came from the Muslim dominated Malabar coast of Kerala, and earned themselves the rather pejorative appellation of “Malabaris”. As Muslims they found It easy to lean Arabic. Yousuf Baker street was a mingle of Arabic, Farsi, Malayalee and Hindi. Many Arabs spoke fluent Hindi having frequently traveled and traded with India. To the Goan, the Keralite was an enigma. His indiscernible language, his ability to live in cramped quarters, work under the most rigorous of conditions and his almost obsequious manner made him unpalatable to a Goan disconnected from India for a good 450 years. To this day, in the Gulf, there is little love lost between Keralites and Goans. What we failed to appreciate was the Keralite’s relentless capacity for hard work. By a strange quirk of fate, in the early eighties, Chris Parry, his wife and sons moved into the neighbourhood barely five minutes of walking distance from where we lived and set up the Dubai Music School. My brother, Gary, attended this school which, in the beginning, comprised of three large rooms and a handful of students. My father knew Chris Parry going back to his days in “Kunbi Jackie” tiatre. Chris Parry for some odd reason was dubbed with the sobriquet, Bab Pinto in Goa. His sons Glen, Miles and Giles were more actively involved in running the school. My brother called them the long-haired musicians but they instilled in him a life-long love of music. Chris Parry confined himself to teaching the wind instruments, although when it came time to prepare Gary for the London Trinity college piano exams, he tutored him personally. He had a penchant for safari suits, wearing them like the jazz legend that he was, with the top-two buttons open. The Yousef Baker area by the late eighties was growing grimy and they moved the school to Karama where it established quite a stellar reputation. Chris Parry lived the life of a musician, feted in his prime and almost forgotten in his twilight years. It is ironic perhaps that while the man of Bhuianrantlo Munis fame died in relative obscurity, Lorna picked up her mike and made a comeback. selma
